Scratch #13 – plus a look back at Scratch and other Theatre Poster Projects

The next Scratch@Fruit night will take place on Tuesday, 9th April. They are looking for submissions/excerpts of no longer than 10 minutes in length from pieces of original dramatic writing. Cast size, set, props, lighting and music & sound cues should all be kept to a minimum.

The deadline for scripts is Friday, March 29. Successful writers will be contacted by Monday, 1st April at the latest.

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Below are the variant colour posters for internet marketing. Click on the images to see them in more detail.

…and below here, the initial thumbnails that started the process.

#13 for Scratch but just number 8 for me… posting this put me in mind of the ones that came before so here’s a quick recap of the earlier posters…

Scratch #6, 7 and 8 all being based upon my fascination with those Victorian toy pop-up paper theatres. The first one (#6) being a SketchUp designed plan for one, the second (#7, one of my favourite designs I’ve done for these events) was based on the notion of “designing on the back of a fag packet”, and finally the image for #8 (the musical theatre event – and probably the least cohesive design of the bunch) was an actual cut-out-and-keep for those that wanted to try there hand at cutting and paper folding.

As unsuccessful as #8 might have seemed to me it did allow me to play with the copy a little and that’s something that was more successful in the following design. The poster for Scratch 9 was a riff on a Saul Bass-esque silhouette image (something, that crops up later) of a man in a doorway, but the list in the centre played on the idea of things that come in nines.

Scratch #10 was a flyer only, and again one of my favourites, I’d been given the brief “dartboards, or targets” for some reason I went with this stark slowmo’ explosion of ink vials as they hit their Mod-like targets.

Scratch #11 was the Christmas Party Event, and I just wanted to avoid images of Santa and presents where possible. I’ve been looking at a lot (no, really. A LOT) of infographics of late and I guess that “signage” style came through. I’m not as sure when the Christmassy holly re-emerged.

Then the 2nd Birthday bash… Again another favourite. The destroyed cake with cigarettes stubbed out in it probably came out of my love of the cover of a PJ O’Rourke book on Bachelor living… in that example the art director had a cigarette stubbed out in a fried egg. I aslo wanted to play with a stronger (not more vibrant, just more cohesive) colour palate, and opted for this 50’s advertising colour set; which in turn led to the peeling sticker motif. In the final online version the names of the plays and playwrights were added into the “white” space at the upper left.

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As well as Scratch, but working with the same people/clients I’ve dabbled a little further afield in the theatre world too…

Here with artwork, layout and type produced for two very different plays (both controversial outings in their way too).

The final Gibraltar artwork was no doubt inspired by the political conspiracy based cards created years ago by illustrator and comics artist Bill Sienkiewicz, his work on Brought To Light being a favorite political/intrigue based set of imagery.

The art started out taking imagery from my memory of newsreels relating to the troubles in Ireland, and those large murals on the ends of terraces laden with what seemed to me then arcane imagery. That led to confusion over the location of the plays major action, it being about reaction to Irish politics, not Ireland per se.

The final imagery was trying to convey that (like an iceberg) there was more going on beneath the surface of the story, and once the proverbial blood was in the water the sharks (here with press passes tucked in their gills) would gather.

The type went through a number of changes, my original idea was to lift the Great Britain initials GB out of the title text and the IRA as well, separating the title into three colours Red, White and Blue. Issues with text layout, and whether or not to have an explanatory blurb on there led me to eventually at he client behest supply the art unadorned (see the upper image).

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Both projects where rapid turnarounds, but fun regardless. And considering until a Year or so ago I’d never even considered Theatre Posters as an outlet for my design practice, I can safely say I’m looking forward to more…